“Your leg feel pretty bad?” he asked, as I leaned down to rub it.

“Bad enough, but it’s getting better.”

“Police business,” he said almost gently, “is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get—and we get things like this.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve always known that. I’m not bitter about it. Goodnight, Captain Webber.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Sit down a minute. If we’ve got to have the Almore case in this, let’s drag it out into the open and look at it.”

“It’s about time somebody did that,” I said. I sat down again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Webber said quietly: “I suppose some people think we’re just a bunch of crooks down here. I suppose they think a fellow kills his wife and then calls me up on the phone and says: ‘Hi, Cap, I got a little murder down here cluttering up the front room. And I’ve got five hundred iron men that are not working.’ And then I say: ‘Fine. Hold everything and I’ll be right down with a blanket.’ ”

“Not quite that bad,” I said.

“What did you want to see Talley about when you went to his house tonight?”

“He had some line on Florence Almore’s death. Her parents hired him to follow it up, but he never told them what it was.”

“And you thought he would tell you?” Webber asked sarcastically.

“All I could do was try.”

“Or was it just that Degarmo getting tough with you made you feel like getting tough right back at him?”

“There might be a little of that in it too,” I said.

“Talley was a petty blackmailer,” Webber said contemptuously. “On more than one occasion. Any way to get rid of him was good enough. So I’ll tell you what it was he had. He had a slipper he had stolen from Florence Almore’s foot.”

“A slipper?”

He smiled faintly. “Just a slipper. It was later found hidden in his house. It was a green velvet dancing pump with some little stones set into the heel. It was custom made, by a man in Hollywood who makes theatrical footwear and such. Now ask me what was important about this slipper?”

“What was important about it, captain?”

“She had two pair of them, exactly alike, made on the same order. It seems that is not unusual. In case one of them gets scuffed or some drunken ox tries to walk up a lady’s leg.” He paused and smiled thinly. “It seems that one pair had never been worn.”

“I think I’m beginning to get it,” I said.

He leaned back and tapped the arms of his chair. He waited.

“The walk from the side door of the house to the garage is rough concrete,” I said. “Fairly rough. Suppose she didn’t walk it, but was carried. And suppose whoever carried her put her slippers on—and got one that had not been worn.”

“Yes?”

“And suppose Talley noticed this while Lavery was telephoning to the doctor, who was out on his rounds. So he took the unworn slipper, regarding it as evidence that Florence Almore had been murdered.”

Webber nodded his head. “It was evidence if he left it where it was, for the police to find it. After he took it, it was just evidence that he was a rat.”

“Was a monoxide test made of her blood?”

He put his hands flat on his desk and looked down at them. “Yes,” he said. “And there was monoxide all right. Also the investigating officers were satisfied with appearances. There was no sign of violence. They were satisfied that Dr. Almore had not murdered his wife. Perhaps they were wrong. I think the investigation was a little superficial.”

“And who was in charge of it?” I asked.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“When the police came, didn’t they notice that a slipper was missing?”

“When the police came there was no slipper missing. You must remember that Dr. Almore was back at his home, in reponse to Lavery’s call, before the police were called. All we know about the missing shoe is from Talley himself. He might have taken the unworn shoe from the house. The side door was unlocked. The maids were asleep. The objection to that is that he wouldn’t have been likely to know there was an unworn slipper to take. I wouldn’t put it past him to think of it. He’s a sharp sneaky little devil. But I can’t fix the necessary knowledge on him.”

We sat there and looked at each other, thinking about it.

“Unless,” Webber said slowly, “we can suppose that this nurse of Almore’s was involved with Talley in a scheme to put the bite on Almore. It’s possible. There are things in favor of it. There are more things against it. What reason have you for claiming that the girl drowned up in the mountains was this nurse?”

“Two reasons, neither one conclusive separately, but pretty powerful taken together. A tough guy who looked and acted like Degarmo was up there a few weeks ago showing a photograph of Mildred Haviland that looked something like Muriel Chess. Different hair and eyebrows and so on, but a fair resemblance. Nobody helped him much. He called himself De Soto and said he was a Los Angeles cop. There isn’t any Los Angeles cop named De Soto. When Muriel Chess heard about it, she looked scared. If it was Degarmo, that’s easily established. The other reason is that a golden anklet with a heart on it was hidden in a box of powdered sugar in the Chess cabin. It was found after her death, after her husband had been arrested. On the back of the heart was engraved: Al to Mildred. June 28th, 1938. With all my love.”

“It could have been some other Al and some other Mildred,” Webber said.

“You don’t really believe that, captain.”

He leaned forward and made a hole in the air with his forefinger. “What do you want to make of all this exactly?”

“I want to make it that Kingsley’s wife didn’t shoot Lavery. That his death had something to do with the Almore business. And with Mildred Haviland. And possibly with Dr. Almore. I want to make it that Kingsley’s wife disappeared because something happened that gave her a bad fright, that she may or may not have guilty knowledge, but that she hasn’t murdered anybody. There’s five hundred dollars in it for me, if I can determine that. It’s legitimate to try.”

He nodded. “Certainly it is. And I’m the man that would help you, if I could see any grounds for it. We haven’t found the woman, but the time has been very short. But I can’t help you put something on one of my boys.”

I said: “I heard you call Degarmo Al. But I was thinking of Almore. His name’s Albert.”

Webber looked at his thumb. “But he was never married to the girl,” he said quietly. “Degarmo was. I can tell you she led him a pretty dance. A lot of what seems bad in him is the result of it.”

I sat very still. After a moment I said: “I’m beginning to see things I didn’t know existed. What kind of a girl was she?”

“Smart, smooth and no good. She had a way with men. She could make them crawl over her shoes. The big boob would tear your head off right now, if you said anything against her. She divorced him, but that didn’t end it for him.”